Present Time
She had grown accustomed to the pain in her heart, Tillie thought as she fed her silver haired son, just as she had grown accustomed to living as a slave amongst her enemy. It was entirely possible that she could grow accustomed to, even reconciled with, having borne the man responsible for the destruction of her home and the murder of her family a child.
The baby in her arms scowled in his sleep as her tear struck his face. She stroked her fingers through the fine silver silk of down that curled on his head to ease the scowl away. “My little dragon princeling,” she murmured to him, trying to find maternal love within herself, but finding only the numb hole that had grown where once her heart had been.
The baby’s mouth continued to work, sucking on dreams of milk, as she laid him down in the wicker weaving of a bassinette that had been brought from the nursery.